The sadness of mannequins

Female mannequin, New Orleans, 1990

Female mannequin, New Orleans, 1990

The sadness of this mannequin’s resigned expression, her beauty, her baldness, and especialy her mutilation, all ask larger and more disturbing questions than whether I like the clothes she is displaying. A young women with a shaved head suggests cancer and concentration camps; the slice through her right eye, parallel with her elegant collar, speaks of abuse, misogyny and rape in the heart our ‘civilized’ society.

And that’s just one photograph of one store. Sometimes beautiful, often sensual or erotic, occasionally sinister and disturbing, always, always surreal: store windows offer a chorus of mixed messages waiting to be noticed. These windows are frozen one scene plays, unconsciously assembled in small theatres by store managers and window dressers. They are commentaries on us, on our society and culture. They are mirrors, literally and metaphorically, for looking at ourselves and who we are.

Store windows have been a long running theme in my photography (you never have to travel far to find one); you can see more in the Store Life Revisited selection of my main Web site.